Thursday, 14 April 2016

and update on features and Sailfish OS releases

Updated on April 20, 2016. On the unfortunate Jolla Tablet campaign, Jolla is currently sending new invitations. Earlier, an email sent to all Indiegogo contributors mentioned April 14, 2016 as the last day to finalize the order and April 16, 2016 as the last day to fill a refund form. Also a reminder on this was sent via email later. Currently, new invitations are sent to those who are ignoring the invitation, and new invitations are supposed to roll out weekly as long as none of them are ignored any more.

Additional to an important reminder, there's an interesting update: Support for biometric scanner for Sailfish OS is on the way.

The last Jolla Tablets and update on the features and releases of Sailfish OS

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April 20, 2016: Reminder for Jolla Tablet contributors

Jolla is currently sending new invitations to the contributors next in line. The next batch of invitations should roll out after April 22nd. Check the last date in the email to finalize your order, as after that date the invitation is sent to the next in line again. The amount of new invitations is expected to reduce every week.

So even if you filled a refund form before April 16th, you might still get an invitation to finalize your order.

Ignoring the invitation means you will receive your requested refund later

Accepting the invitation, filling the needed information and paying the taxes means you get a Jolla Tablet instead

It might take a few weeks until no more new invitations are left. In the end, total of 661 official Jolla Tablets are expected to be delivered, and approximately half of these are already shipped by today. In the campaign, there were about 10 000 perks bought and Jolla got about 2000 more pre-ordered later. The wanted Jolla Tablet ends up being a rare piece of hardware.

April 14, 2016: Updates on features and releases on Sailfish OS

Today in a Mer community meeting Jolla shared that the Split Screen feature for Jolla Tablet has been dropped from the roadmap for 2016. In the meeting it was also shared that Jolla is currently focusing on other stuff, like supporting biometric scanner (fingerprint) in the future. The resources (manpower) Jolla currently has is still limited, but hiring new people is going on. Also, the dropped split screen feature was mentioned as a possible community project. (13:56:55)

Yet more news from the meeting, Jolla has also found a possible fix to the bug delaying the release of Sailfish OS 2.0.1. Taalojärvi. If the fix is found good enough, Jolla will release another Early Access version for the community to test - and if nothing else will show up during the testing, there will likely be a public release a week after that. The great news doesn't end even here: Translation tool pootle for the community to help translating Sailfish OS official parts is about to be published soon.

As a sidenote on the releases, Sailfish OS 2.0.2. Aurajoki should also become available soon, at least for Intex Aqua Fish, a new Sailfish OS smartphone to be released in India on April 25, 2016. It was not shared if the community will test this version as an Early Access release, but looking at the plans for releasing another EA of Taalojärvi, that now seems unlikely. If the current release schedule holds, that would mean rather short time for 2.0.1 to be the latest version.

Or could it be that Aurajoki is released only for the Intex Aqua Fish? While this release includes a new feature Partner Space (later renamed as "Super Apps"), a dedicated release is quite possible, as this feature is not supposed to be released for Jolla branded devices.

By the way, what do you think about biometric scanners on mobile devices? Discuss below, or for example on TJC (1)(2)